Children's understanding of the way objects balance has provided important insights about cognitive development [e.g., Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1992). Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Siegler, R. S. (1976). Three aspects of cognitive development. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 481–520]. We investigated the performance of 86 children aged between 5 and 7 years to see whether their cognitions about balance were consistent across different types of balance task. The children did not utilise the same cognitive processes across the different tasks; instead performance appeared to be influenced by perceptual and task characteristics. The findings emphasise that children's ability to access their knowledge varies with task demands and that theories about cognitive development need to take greater account of this variation.

Children's understanding of the way objects balance has provided important insights about cognitive development [e.g., Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1992). Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Siegler, R. S. (1976). Three aspects of cognitive development. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 481–520]. We investigated the performance of 86 children aged between 5 and 7 years to see whether their cognitions about balance were consistent across different types of balance task. The children did not utilise the same cognitive processes across the different tasks; instead performance appeared to be influenced by perceptual and task characteristics. The findings emphasise that children's ability to access their knowledge varies with task demands and that theories about cognitive development need to take greater account of this variation.

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dc.language.iso

en

en

dc.publisher

Elsevier

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dc.relation.url

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S095947520600079X

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dc.rights

Archived with thanks to Learning and Instruction

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dc.subject

balance

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dc.subject

context

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dc.subject

representations

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dc.title

Children's behaviour and cognitions across different balance tasks

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dc.type

Article

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dc.contributor.department

Open University

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dc.contributor.department

University of Hertfordshire

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dc.identifier.journal

Learning and Instruction

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